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Judge Holden and the Violence of Erasure: Blood Meridian's Historical Skepticism

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Judge Holden and the Violence of Erasure: Blood Meridian's Historical Skepticism Judge Holden and the Violence of Erasure: Blood Meridian’s Historical Skepticism Shawn Mark Jasinski Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian is deeply concerned with the representation of American history and the violent manipulation of historical records. Focusing on the gruesome events that follow the Mexican/American War, McCarthy depicts a world in which the physical violence of Manifest Destiny is accompanied by the violence of the discourse that arises from the justification of an American “calling,” which results in the brutality of American expansionism sweeping across the landscape as swiftly as the shadows of the Glanton Gang. However, this novel is not merely an attempt to revisit a forgotten American history, but also an exploration of the relationship between violence and history, and the ways that the grand narrative of American exceptionalism reflects the violence of rarefied discourse. In addition to this re-envisioning of American history, in the novel Judge Holden provides a liaison between the violent actions presented to the reader and the broader historical implications of an exceptionalist model of nation building. The historical significance of Blood Meridian lies in the way McCarthy’s narrative diverges from the traditional mythology of American westward movement. In contrast to Bill Brown’s claim that “the narration of the west aestheticizes the genocidal foundation of the nation, turning conquest into a literary enterprise that screens out other violent episodes in the nation’s history” (qtd. in Eaton 156), McCarthy attempts to create a less rarefied version of the American grand narrative. Unlike traditional westerns, McCarthy’s novel makes “visible those violent episodes that accompanied the fight over land” (Eaton 157), and reveals a different kind of violence: the violence of cultural amnesia. After all, the problem with southwestern mythology is not only that the “myth was easier to swallow than the reality” (Eaton 157), but that the American national identity was grounded in a willed forgetting of the violence of these events. For Dana Phillips, McCarthy’s “violence tends to be just that; it is not a sign or symbol of something else” (435), and, in turn, Blood Meridian cannot be said to contain any sort of moral insight along the lines of “scalp hunting is imperialism by other means” (449). However, while Phillips is right to suggest this is clearly not a novel with any sort of explicit moral agenda, the novel does offer a critique of the American exceptionalist project in the southwest and the destructive manipulation of American history. Unlike Phillips, Mark Eaton claims Blood Meridian can be seen as “McCarthy’s attempt to contest in his work the official story of Manifest Destiny, according to which American interests took precedence over the claims of the indigenous peoples” (Eaton 157). Eaton may, in fact, be too willing to impose this framework upon the novel, but to deny this component of McCarthy’s work is far more problematic. While published criticism has amply recognized the judge’s celebration of violence, and the historical elements of McCarthy’s novel, even these critics have not clearly explored the relationship between violence and history, or violence and the erasure of its own traces. This tradition of collectively dis-remembering violent events is not merely an American tradition, though one might argue the U.S. has perfected the practice, but is instead a standard component of nation-building. As Ernest Renan says in his discussion of what forms a nation, “forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of 1 a nation, which is why progress in historical studies often constitutes a danger for the principle of nationality. Indeed, historical enquiry brings light to deeds of violence which took place at the origins of all political formations” (50). The “historical error” Renan addresses is not merely a matter of “historical record,” in terms of revisiting the distant past, but also the way discursive historical practices will always produce a teleological version of history tailored to serve the desired ends of the dominant order. While McCarthy’s novel as a whole serves to bring the “light” Renan speaks of, Judge Holden, as a character, serves to illustrate the active pursuit of historical erasure. The judge is not a “ventriloquist’s dummy perched on the novelist’s knee,” as Phillips warns, but is clearly a vehicle for McCarthy’s discussion of the nature of both physical and discursive violence in the borderland frontier. The southwest of the mid-nineteenth century is the perfect setting for a story like Blood Meridian to play out because it has no clearly defined boundaries. Within the novel, the violence of the borderlands is framed by Captain White’s description of the Mexicans as a “race of degenerates” who are “manifestly incapable of governing themselves” (34). Even as the bulk of the novel takes place on the Mexican side of the border, this rhetoric of American expansionism provides the justification for the Glanton Gang’s presence, as well as their brand of violence. White continues, “we are to be the instruments of liberation in a dark and troubled land” (34), which, when combined with his earlier statements, demonstrates the belief that the U.S. is not only justified in its actions, but performing its destined role as a redeemer nation. Following the annexation of Texas and California in 1845, the Mexican border was redrawn far south of a large number of Mexicans. This left the southwest in utter chaos as borders were still uncertain; American settlers, Mexicans, Native Americans, and soldiers left from the war populated the territory. The undefined and flexible quality of the borderlands seems to be reflected in the almost mythical quality of Judge Holden. Mark Eaton reads Blood Meridian as “counter-narrative to the overly sanitized rhetoric of Manifest Destiny” (159), but through the specter of the judge, McCarthy’s novel also becomes an exploration of the historical erasure that precipitates his need to provide a counter-narrative. The judge’s embodiment of the violence of discourse is amplified by his willful understanding of the process he is taking part in. From the moment we are introduced to him, Judge Holden seems to be the perfect character to embody this commentary on history and violence, just like the Mexican borderland is the perfect setting. While the judge is undoubtedly the most violent and horrifying of McCarthy’s characters, he is also the most intelligent and learned member of the Glanton Gang. The judge’s knowledge is so far beyond that of the other gang members that he is thought to be lying. After giving an “extemporary lecture in geology,” members of the gang summoned quotes of “scripture to confound his ordering up of eons out of the ancient chaos”” (116). McCarthy’s inclusion of this moment serves to reiterate the judge’s ability to comprehend a far more expansive understanding of the world around him than the other members of the gang. In turn, Holden seems to have a firm grasp on the violent nature of history, which in many ways serves as an extension of his interest in violence of any kind. In his discussion of collective amnesia’s role in nation building, Mark Eaton writes that the “real violence in the borderlands is followed by the virtual violence of a sort of willed forgetting” (158). The judge actively participates in both forms of violence, as can be seen in his treatment of history throughout the novel. We must always remember the judge, as well as an historian, is also, according to Joshua J. Masters, “an author,” and, as an author, “an expunger” (26). His sketching and then 2 destroying of both objects and people is indicative of his own grasp on the importance of controlling the historical record. The judge’s sketching seems rather out of place for a murdering pedophile with a seemingly insatiable lust for blood, but viewed as a process of historical revision, his obsessive note taking becomes nothing more than his participation in a different form of violence, the violence of discourse. McCarthy seems to fall in line with Michel Foucault here, as Foucault suggests we must “recognize the negative activity of the cutting-out and the rarefaction of discourse,” and to “conceive discourse as a violence that we do to things” (229). The judge seems to be fully aware, if not personally invested, in this form of violence, as he strives to maintain a record of everything around him. This point is reflected in the nature of McCarthy’s source material as well. Dana Phillips suggests the consideration of McCarthy’s sources does not offer any real “hermeneutic advantage” (436), but, within this discussion of discursive violence, Chamberlain’s source material does illustrate the trend of historical manipulation. Samuel Chamberlain’s memoir, My Confession, provides one of the only surviving descriptions of the characters McCarthy depicts, and while the work of John Sepich catalogues a variety of other sources from newspaper correspondents like Theodoro Goodman who reported on the ferry-massacre, to John Woodhouse Audobon’s Western Journal, Chamberlain’s Confession is the most intriguing. Unlike McCarthy’s version, Chamberlain’s narrative is marked by justifications for violence, such as justifying Glanton’s actions by highlighting the murder of his wife and daughter at the hands of the Lipan warriors. Chamberlain argues, “from this tragic scene Glanton returned a changed man,” and “any other man in Texas would have been lynched, but his terrible loss, his services in the Mexican and Indian wars, made him respected by the masses and gave him strong friends of men in power” (269).
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